CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Cancer Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center has a new name.

Nearly 1,200 people, including UH employees, benefactors and community leaders, converged on Severance Hall on Monday night at an invitation-only event to hear UH Chief Executive Tom Zenty announce a $42 million gift to the hospital system.

The Jane and Lee Seidman Cancer Center, which will open in May 2011, has been renamed in honor of the Pepper Pike couple.

"It is rare in one's lifetime to have the opportunity to make an announcement of a gift of this magnitude," Zenty said, following trumpet fanfare, in a packed Severance Hall lobby.

Even though some guests might not have known the details, they probably would have guessed something big was imminent. The last time UH held such a gala at Severance Hall was four years ago to announce a $30 million gift from Hunting Valley businessman Monte Ahuja, which up until Monday night was the largest single gift to the hospital system.

Both Seidmans addressed the crowd.

"When I look at this building and its state-of-the-art technology and the level of the people who will work there, I think of my dad, who died of cancer at age 56," said Jane Seidman, 70. "He never got to see his own grandchildren.

"With the staff and technology of this center, many grandparents will live to see their grandchildren grow and prosper."

Lee Seidman, 78, followed his wife.

"People don't care how much you know, they want to know how much you care," he said. "We care a lot, about friends, family, community and health.

"Aren't you glad you live in Cleveland?"

He then told people that their physical and mental health can improve in tandem with their philanthropy. Holding up a home plate from a baseball diamond, he advised them to "Hit a philanthropy home run."

The crowd was clearly awed by the size of the Seidmans' gift.

Marilyn Miller of Lyndhurst said, "It makes me cry. UH saved my husband's life. It is a very special place for so many of us."

Zenty offered up even more big news Monday night: the public phase of UH's $1 billion comprehensive fundraising campaign, "Discover the Difference: The Campaign for University Hospitals." It's the largest such fundraising effort in UH history. UH Board President Monte Ahuja and Jack Breen, a lifetime UH board member, are campaign co-chairs.

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As with many institutions, the first phase began quietly in 2003, targeting board members and donors who are able to give significant gifts. To date, it has raised $685 million.

This public phase broadens the scope to a much wider audience and expands the funding base to include employees, patients and the community.

"We have now achieved somewhere in vicinity of 50,000 donors, which is extraordinary recognition of the support we have in the communities that we serve," Zenty said Nov. 24 in an interview.

Among those donors, 66 gifts of $1 million or more make up part of the total.

Monday's celebration was designed to celebrate not only the Seidmans, but people who have given at every level, Zenty said.

The Seidmans' gift is "not only transformational in what we are able to do, but .¤.¤. also inspirational to other donors as well," he said.

All nine outpatient cancer programs in UH's regional network, in addition to the newest building at UH's main campus on Euclid Avenue, will bear the Seidman name.

The naming is a significant, unifying act that underscores cancer care throughout the UH system, Seidman Cancer Center Director Dr. Stanton Gerson said during an interview last week. "What we do across all entities, we do under one umbrella," he said.

The 120-bed center -- with capacity for 30 more -- will be 10 stories tall. The $260 million project will cover 375,000 square feet, triple the space for cancer services currently at UH. Nine levels (including the lower level) will be dedicated to patient care.

It will be the region's only free-standing cancer hospital in Northeast Ohio and only one of two in the state. The other is the James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University in Columbus. Built in 1990, it has 160 patient beds.

A family friend of the Seidmans for more than a decade, UH President Dr. Fred Rothstein said "They value helping people."

The Seidmans said they want their gift to prompt others they know with similar financial means to contribute as much as they have -- or even more.

While the Seidmans could have simply made provisions for such a large gift in their will, they said they didn't want to be like others who leave a gift as part of an estate and aren't alive to see its impact.

"They will miss all the fun, all the joy of being philanthropic," Lee Seidman said last week.

Much of the money already raised by the campaign has gone to pay for parts of UH's Vision 2010 strategic plan, which began in early 2006. That plan has resulted in the construction of the Seidman Cancer Center, the Ahuja Medical Center and several outpatient centers.

Other money has created 31 new endowed chairs, which are essential in recruiting and retaining physician and scientist talent; and raised the amount of unrestricted giving, which helps pay for, among other things, the implementation of electronic medical records, said Sherri Bishop, UH's senior vice president of institutional relations and development.

Lonnie Timmons III, The Plain DealerJane and Lee Seidman of Pepper Pike have given $42 million to University Hospitals, the largest gift in the hospital system's history. The Jane and Lee Seidman Cancer Center has been named in their honor.

Monetary support from all donors has exceeded expectations, Bishop said last week.

"What it boils down to is more lives saved and [the ability to] bring better quality care to Northeast Ohio and particularly closer to your home," she said.

The Seidmans, both Cleveland natives, are well-known in Northeast Ohio business and philanthropy circles. Lee Seidman is founder and retired president of Motorcars Group, which he started in 1958.

In recent years, the couple has made other substantial gifts to health care in Northeast Ohio.

In 2006, they gave $17 million to the Cleveland Clinic to create an endowed chair in functional neurosurgery, to pay for medical research and to support construction of the Clinic's heart center.

In 2008, they gave $1 million to UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital to establish a chair in pediatric cancer innovation.

Last year, the couple donated $6 million to Hillcrest Hospital's expansion and renovation project; the NICU in the Jane and Lee Seidman Tower opened Monday.

The latest gift, which is about three years in the making, is by far the biggest.

The honor of having the cancer center named after them is a feeling that's almost impossible to process, Jane Seidman said.

"It's very hard to grasp it and know that it's us," she said. "It's an honor, more so because Lee is a self-made man."

As for their new namesake, "It's phenomenal, beautifully done," Lee Seidman said. "As long as a person has to be in the hospital [for cancer treatment], it will probably be the choice of anybody within 1,000 miles from here."

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